Table of Contents

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Detroit Area Study, 1960: Labor and Leisure in the Urban Community, A Study of Social Order and Social Change (ICPSR 7399)

Principal Investigator(s):Wilensky, Harold L.

Summary:

This study of 678 adults in the Detroit metropolitan
area in 1960 provides measures of their job satisfaction and
use of leisure time, as well as information on their friendships,
buying patterns, and political preferences. Questions on job
satisfaction queried respondents about job preferences, hours worked
at current job, preference for self-employment, type of supervisors
at workplace, chances for promotion, and the work culture and
environment at respondents' current jobs. Questions on leisure
time elicit information on time spent watc... (more info)

This study of 678 adults in the Detroit metropolitan
area in 1960 provides measures of their job satisfaction and
use of leisure time, as well as information on their friendships,
buying patterns, and political preferences. Questions on job
satisfaction queried respondents about job preferences, hours worked
at current job, preference for self-employment, type of supervisors
at workplace, chances for promotion, and the work culture and
environment at respondents' current jobs. Questions on leisure
time elicit information on time spent watching television
and the programs watched often, newspapers and magazines read
regularly and favorite columnists, books read, time spent on
other hobbies and crafts such as photography, music, and sports,
vacation time, use of spare time, memberships in clubs and
organizations, and time spent socializing with friends, relatives,
colleagues, and neighbors. Other items probed respondents'
opinions about causes of unemployment, their feelings about their
standard of living, and their future plans, financial obligations,
buying patterns, use and ownership of telephones, self-perceived
social class, political party preference, and choice of gubernatorial
and presidential candidates in the last election. Additional items
probed respondents' attitudes toward Blacks as neighbors and
co-workers. Demographic variables specify age, sex, race, education,
place of birth, length of residence in the Detroit area, home
ownership, length of time at present residence, marital status,
number of children, original nationality of paternal family, income,
occupation, religious preferences, and class identification.

More information about the Detroit Area Studies Project is available on this Web site.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

Wilensky, Harold L. Detroit Area Study, 1960: Labor and Leisure in the Urban Community, A Study of Social Order and Social Change. ICPSR07399-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07399.v3

Methodology

Sample:
A total of 678 adults in households in the Detroit
metropolitan area in 1960.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Performed consistency checks.

Created variable labels and/or value labels.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1984-07-02

Version History:

2010-12-10 SAS, SPSS, and Stata setups have been added to this data collection.